For decades, the Ford F-150 Full-sized pickup truck has been the bestselling vehicle in the United States, and thus also the vehicle that sold the most units in a single market, regularly selling over 60.000 units per month and even occasionally topping 70.000 units. The only way General Motors has been able to come close to those numbers was by marketing its competing pickup truck under two nameplates: Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra. But now, General Motors looks set to take that crown from Ford, but it’s not because new generations of the GM pickups have just been introduced. The threat comes from far left-field: minivans!

The segment created by Chrysler some 30 years ago, has struggled for years in the United States. In 2000, 1.37 million minivans (called MPVs in Europe) were sold, but that has dropped to around 500.000 units a year since. Wait, 500.000 a year? That means the Ford F-150 outsells all minivans on the market combined. How can a single minivan even come close to the pickup truck? The answer is: China. [Read more…]